"The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political
rights of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion ... it will guarantee freedom
of religion and conscience." - May 1948)

Uri Regev

Latest stories by Uri Regev

Israel's Chief Rabbinate disregards and disrespects Jewish leaders and their communities around the world. Israel must end their monopoly and embrace its promise for “freedom of religion and conscience... and equality” as a blueprint for a modern democratic Jewish state.

In a Jewish Daily Forward op-ed, Rabbi Uri Regev writes that Israeli and American Jewish leadership's blind eye to religious freedom in Israel will endanger Israel's relationship with the next generation of American Jewry.

On July 24, a voting body made up of 150 rabbis, politicians and community leaders will decide who will be the next Sephardi and Ashkenazi chief rabbis of Israel. What is this coercive institution doing to Israeli Judaism?

Yair Lapid and his party, Yesh Atid, have expressed support for Jewish pluralism in Israel in an unprecedented manner. However, they also endorsed Rabbi David Stav, a Religious-Zionist Rabbi from the Tzohar Rabbinic Organization, as the candidate for Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi. Yesh Atid and Rabbi Stav hold seemingly divergent views on pluralism and freedom of marriage in Israel. So how does this all add up?

The overwhelming majority of Israelis want to see its founding promises of "freedom of religion and conscience" and "equality regardless of religion" fully realized. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, through is preventing that from happening.

Recent actions of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate threaten to divide the Jewish people and risk an anti-religious backlash against Judaism itself within the Jewish state. Of particular concern is the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate over issues of personal status – particularly marriage, divorce, burial, and conversion to Judaism.